Brands of the East
The Brands of the East are a violent, xenophobic sect of Elovisian Neo-Occultism. The Brands have been responsible for religiously-motivated attacks against the visible members of the New Voxelian minority throughout the Coalition states, but increased law enforcement actions against them have largely confined their activities to Craterhold in recent years.
Public Agenda
While individuals of New Voxelian heritage have long lived as loyal citizens of the various Coalition states, especially the Free Faces League, historical conflicts and the ongoing War of Reunification have served to drive a wedge between some Elovisians and this cohort for centuries. This state of affairs has resulted in racial tensions which the Brands of the East are keen to exploit. Members work to sow division between the ethnicities, intimidate prominent New Voxelians and their allies, engage in subtle influence campaigns to undermine the interests of New Voxelians and the Church of the Unexpected, and promote an ideology of Elovisian supremacy. The actual beliefs of the Brands beyond this bigotry are obscure to the public, however, as the organization operates as a secret society within the larger Neo-Occultist community.
History
The exile of the Proto-Elvoz speaking tribes from Medial A cube at the end of the Old Voxelian Conquest caused a schism in the previously localized human population under the Manifold Sky. The survivors of this exile resettled in the Eastern-adjacent Medial C cube, blending with remnants of the Lost Tribes along the way to create a new Elovisian identity.
Centuries later, Voxelian explorers reached these new parts of the tesseract as the limbs of a Voxelian imperialist project. However, many of these explorers instead united with the local populations and, in time, came to identify with the fledgeling states that would become the Free Faces League, the Commonwealth of C, and Craterhold while still retaining many of the ethnic traits that identified them as New Voxelian. While many Elovisians were able to let go of their historical grudges and accept these new members of their communities, others could not, resulting in racial tensions which, while decreasing overall with the passage of time, simmer beneath the surface of Coalition culture even into the present day. Though it would be easy to frame the War of Reunification as a war between New Voxelians and Elovisians, descendants of these immigrants have fought just as vigorously against the Grand Army of their peers, if not more so, out of a desire to preserve their adoptive homelands and the political ideals for which the Coalition stands.
The Neo-Occultist religious movement began as a means by which Elovisians - dispossessed of their cultural heritage by exile and, to some extent, their absorption and reinterpretation as the gods of the House of the Unexpected - could reclaim the religious traditions they once held in Medial A. At that time, the Old Voxelian tribes which would unite to form the state of Voxelia were simply some of many tribes local to the Blue Silk River environs, each of which had a unique spiritual heritage. Thus, even ethnic New Voxelians descended from these tribes and disenfranchised by the ultra-syncretized Unexpector faith could find community within the Neo-Occultist movement despite their lack of what would typically be considered an Elovisian heritage.
All of these factors set the stage for the development of factions within the Neo-Occultist movement who saw the inclusion of the 'imperialists' as an affront to the development of a purely Elovisian religious identity. Despite the fact that many of these New Voxelians had been loyal subjects of the Coalition states for ten or more generations, some Elovisians still looked upon them with suspicion. The existence of a widespread and influential Voxelian intelligence apparatus in the form of the Bards-Recursant only fueled the creation of anti-New Voxelian conspiracy theories among these Neo-Occultists. These conspiracy-minded groups would eventually find each other and, around 9990 AR, formed the Brands of the East as a sect within Neo-Occultism with the goal of driving New Voxelians out of the faith and, eventually, out of the broader Coalition society.
Foreign Relations
The Brands' ethnic violence has been met with public condemnation on the part of faith leaders, outcry by pro-Voxelian and pro-pluralism activists, and police manhunts. All such social institutions in Craterhold are too weak to effectively contain the threat represented by the Brands, however, and so the organization persists in that country where elsewhere it has been forced into the shadows. There are ongoing secret conflicts between the Brands of the East and the equally extreme Daughters of Misfortune, the latter organization regarding the Brands as a perversion of the early mythology that would come to inform the Unexpector worship of Lyvianne, Goddess of Misfortune. The Brands have had little contact with outside religious groups save through their tacit alignment with Neo-Occultism as a whole, though the few Rostran Esotericists familiar with the group have expressed annoyance that ritual sigils might become conflated with the Brands of the East firemark within the Human Arc.
Cosmological Views
Neo-Occultism is mostly Linearist in outlook, teaching that history flows in a defineable direction which, with the proper devotions and works of virtue, can be influenced towards a brighter future in both the spiritual and temporal realms. The Brands of the East expand upon this philosophy by teaching that history will eventually end - likely sooner than people think - and that decisive action must be taken in the mean time to ensure a better future for the faithful by achieving an Elovisian victory over their New Voxelian oppressors. The Brands frame the defining conflict of the current era as being between the Elovisians and New Voxelians as cultural groups rather than between any nations they might declare their allegiance to. Though Neo-Occultism has a distinctly Elovisian identity, most do not share the Brands' openly racist worldview and merely seek to reclaim their lost pre-Conquest heritage - of which, they acknowledge, the Old Voxelian tribal belief system was also a part. This distinction in worldview ensures that the Brands, though self-professed Neo-Occultists, are continually at odds with the more moderate members of the faith even as they claim to be the defenders of it.
Political Influence & Intrigue
The Brands of the East fancy themselves the inquisitorial arm of the Neo-Occultist movement. Citizens of Elovisian-majority territories who either exhibit strong New Voxelian heritage or who express solidarity with the same from positions of power within the community may draw the malicious attentions of the Brands. The Brands have been known to kidnap such individuals and, as part of ritual work, torture them with branding irons set with the emblem of the Brands of the East; victims will be branded on the palms, soles of the feet, and forehead to hobble and disfigure them before being released as a warning to others.
Type
Religious, Cult
Demonym
Brand(s)
Leader Title
Parent Organization
Related Ethnicities
Official Disavowal
While mainstream Neo-Occultists are quick to point out that their faith is inclusive of Old Voxelian esoteric knowledge and the violence of the Brands inspires public revulsion, more than a few Neo-Occultists harbor anti-Voxelian sentiment due to the events of the Old Voxelian Conquest and the ongoing War of Reunification that extends beyond mere national rivalry into the realm of reflexive bigotry.
Violent, xenophobic as the two first adjectives really sets the tone for what we are going to be exploring in this article. And they sure held up to the 'hype.' Certainly, they seem to earn their hate by oppressing minorities. And to have a religion around it... Bad news all around! Loved the read! And great entry!